What is Nashville's claim to fame other than country music?

[jayden]

Other than country music, what is Nashville generally known for? This isn't meant to cause an argument, I'm just genuinely curious.

Maybe Amazon HQ2?

[suburbanite]

Endless bachelorette parties and hot chicken.

[homebucket]

Hot chicken, bachelorette parties.

[bossabreezes]

Pretty much nothing, it’s extremely hyped in the same way Austin is. Both are fairly bland places on a national level.

[mhays]

Once you're on the hype train, you're famous for being famous.

But also critical mass is a real thing with cities. People visit because of a reputation, but they make it bigger and better, and then people visit because it has a lot of good stuff, at least for tourists.

[jmecklenborg]

I lived in Nashville in the 90s and have a degree from U of Tennessee main campus in Knoxville. I have lived in various parts of Tennessee for upwards of 10 years. My dad owns property in Davidson County (Nashville's county), Williamson County, Hickman County, and Dickson County. Three of my younger siblings went to grade school and high school in Nashville. One of my brothers went to Vanderbilt. None of us had ever heard the term "Nashville Hot Chicken" until about 2014.

Hot Chicken is a complete invention by Nashville's relentless PR machine. It's basically a hedge-fund invented food. Don't believe the backstory, because it was invented and exaggerated and conflated. They probably paid Kentucky Fried Chicken to start selling it just to get the Nashville brand out there.

Remember, every time to eat a bite of "Nashville Hot Chicken", some east coast trust funder is getting paid.

[Steely Dan]

here's wikipedia's entry on the history of Nashville Hot Chicken:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that spicy fried chicken has been served in Nashville's African-American communities for generations.[8] The current dish may have been introduced as early as the 1930s; however, the current style of spice paste may only date back to the mid-1970s. It is generally accepted that the originator of hot chicken is the family of Andre Prince Jeffries, owner of Prince's Hot Chicken Shack. She has operated the restaurant since 1980; before that time, it was owned by her great-uncle, Thornton Prince III. Although impossible to verify, Jeffries says the development of hot chicken was an accident. Her great-uncle Thornton was purportedly a womanizer, and after a particularly late night out his girlfriend at the time cooked him a fried chicken breakfast with extra pepper as revenge. Instead, Thornton decided he liked it so much that, by the mid-1930s, he and his brothers had created their own recipe and opened the BBQ Chicken Shack café.[9][10][11]

What began as breakfast revenge is now considered to be a staple food for late-night diners. On weekends, most restaurants dedicated to hot chicken are open very late (some past 4 am). As of 2015, there are an estimated two dozen restaurants in the Nashville area that serve hot chicken, either as the focus or as part of a larger menu.[12] For a time,[when?] country music stars Lorrie Morgan and Sammy Kershaw owned and operated a now-defunct hot chicken restaurant called "hotchickens.com".[13] The former mayor of Nashville Bill Purcell is a devoted fan, sponsoring the Music City Hot Chicken Festival and giving numerous interviews touting the dish. While in office, he frequently referred to his table at Prince's Hot Chicken as his "second office".[14][15]

Reflecting the growing popularity of the dish, several cities in the United States host restaurants that serve hot chicken or a variation thereof, including St. Louis, Atlanta, New York City, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago,[12] Los Angeles,[16] Birmingham,[9] Louisville,[17] Ann Arbor,[18] Columbus,[19] Seattle,[20] and Salt Lake City.[21] The appeal of hot chicken has spread beyond the United States, with restaurants in Seoul, South Korea,[22] and Melbourne, Australia,[12] also serving this style of chicken.

In January 2016, fast food chain KFC began selling "Nashville Hot Chicken" and "Nashville Hot Tenders" in its U.S. restaurants. This follows a trial run in the Pittsburgh area that it stated was "the most successful product testing in the company's recent history."[23] Following this, KFC released "Nashville Hot Chicken" in its UK restaurants for a limited run between May 22 and June 18, 2017.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chicken

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Pretty much nothing, it’s extremely hyped in the same way Austin is. Both are fairly bland places on a national level.

At least Nashville is known for country and it plays on the theme well with it's live music and bars in the city as well as many country recording studios. Austin is literally just a smaller, sunnier, warmer wannabe Seattle placed in Texas. No offense to it.

[eschaton]

I guess the one caveat I would say is while Nashville is known for country music, it has historically been strong for all sorts of music. Much of this is because the country music industry has a big demand for session players (hired guns) meaning a musician in a random rock band can move there, make bank doing pop-country they don't care about in the studio, and then play live with the band they actually care about.

[ChiMIchael]

It's also a hub for Christian/Gospel music.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

At least Nashville is known for country and it plays on the theme well with it's live music and bars in the city as well as many country recording studios. Austin is literally just a smaller, sunnier, warmer wannabe Seattle placed in Texas. No offense to it.

Austin is known for live music, not just country, which was part of its PR campaign as the "live music capital of the world" in the 90s and early 2000s. Nashville is known for country music.

Austin doesn't want to Seattle, trust me.

[eschaton]

Kinda off topic, but Austin never really struck me as a wannabe Seattle so much as a jumped-up (Texas-sized, if you will) Madison. That is to say it's a state capitol and has the flagship public university, which the city has leveraged successfully into broader economic dynamism.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Pretty much nothing,

In the 90s, Memphis was not only bigger than Nashville, it was Tennessee's music capital. It was more or less City #1, nationally, for both blues and rock & roll. Country & Western were regional music styles (like polka) but blues and rock were international.

Nashville's entire rise is thanks to WSM 650AM and its continuous production and syndication of the Grand Ol Opry radio show. Such syndicated shows were common throughout the United States in the 1930s through 1960s or so (i.e. 700WLW Cincinnati's Midwestern Hayride), but the Grand Ol Opry show survived. The record business moved from New York City to Los Angeles in the 1960s but a few companies set up small satellite offices in Nashville to be close to that show, since all country musicians played on the show several times per year and it was a convenient place to see established acts and new talent.

The show was moved in the 1970s from the Ryman Auditorium in DT Nashville to Opryland, which was a regional tourist attraction built about 6 miles east. Opryland was originally a big hotel (without a casino) next to an amusement park of the same name. Opryland drew a lot of tourism away from DT Nashville, which was populated by many strip clubs.

What I just described didn't happen for Memphis because blues and rock were always managed out of LA. Memphis made serious attempts to be a regional tourist attraction but it was hurt by the relative decline of blues and rock & roll. No national radio or TV show was ever broadcast out of Memphis. Nobody ever built a rock/blues amusement park and adjacent hotel in Memphis.

I only recall seeing one guy wearing a cowboy hat in Nashville in the 90s. He was at the Exxon station on Broadway next to Beaman Ford.

Since about 2010, Nashville has become a grotesque parody of itself. The tourists are mostly yuppies from Chicago, Michigan, and Ohio - areas where country music was never heard until recently. These people have never done any farming, worked on a ranch, cut the head off a chicken, etc., but they sure love pretending to be the rural working class for a bachlorette weekend.

What's crazy is that something similar to Opryland *did* get built in...Paducah, KY. It was the Executive Inn, or just "The E". It had like 3,000 rooms. It was GIGANTIC. It was built for regional stuff, not unlike Opryland.
It was demolished around 2005.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

here's wikipedia's entry on the history of Nashville Hot Chicken:



source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chicken

Yeah that's all a lie.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Yeah that's all a lie.

i won't take your word for it.

[Northern Light]

What?

No one mentioned the home-flipping show 'Masters of Flip' set in Nashville?

Pfft.

LOL


https://www.hgtv.com/shows/masters-of-flip

[202_Cyclist]

I was going to add hot chicken sandwiches but it looks like that is taken care of.

The Gateway to Dollywood?

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I lived in Nashville in the 90s and have a degree from U of Tennessee main campus in Knoxville. I have lived in various parts of Tennessee for upwards of 10 years. My dad owns property in Davidson County (Nashville's county), Williamson County, Hickman County, and Dickson County. Three of my younger siblings went to grade school and high school in Nashville. One of my brothers went to Vanderbilt. None of us had ever heard the term "Nashville Hot Chicken" until about 2014.

Hot Chicken is a complete invention by Nashville's relentless PR machine. It's basically a hedge-fund invented food. Don't believe the backstory, because it was invented and exaggerated and conflated. They probably paid Kentucky Fried Chicken to start selling it just to get the Nashville brand out there.

Remember, every time to eat a bite of "Nashville Hot Chicken", some east coast trust funder is getting paid.

LOL what?? So because you and your family hadn't heard of it until 2014, it didn't exist before that point? You're aware how silly that sounds, right? You are, of course, correct in pointing out that Nashville hot chicken has exploded in popularity both nationally and in the city itself over the past decade or so, and yeah, there was probably some crafty marketing at play somewhere along the line, but it obviously existed well before that point, even if it was just known as "hot chicken" instead of "Nashville hot chicken." I remember going to Prince's fairly regularly for hot chicken with my dad as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, for example. I guess we'll never know if the whole 'jilted lover' origin story is authentic, but the story, like the chicken itself, wasn't just some random invention by the Tourism Bureau ten years ago as you seem to be asserting.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Pretty much nothing, it’s extremely hyped in the same way Austin is. Both are fairly bland places on a national level.

Neither are bland. Austin is well known for being a funky college town with a well established live music scene and Nashville for country music. Both cities have been somewhat homogenized as they've grown and integrated but so have most major American cities. I remember Houston with the Cadillacs and ten gallon hats. All gone.

Even New York City lost some of its soul over the years.

[BnaBreaker]

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